| If you accept that Waterloo is part of the Golden Horseshoe (a possible point of contention, but born and raised here I've always thought it was) then Toronto and Waterloo are similar and connected in the way that San Francisco and San Jose are, though on a small population and density scale. I don't know much about the Valley, but the impression I have is that it is a large area with regions that focus on different aspects of technology and I think that is true for the Golden Horseshoe. I am missing some, but there's a large number of great schools (York, Ryerson, McMaster, Sheridan, Conestoga, Waterloo, Laurier, Guelph) that tend to act as focal points for regional specialties, highlighted by the differences in focus by tech organizations like MaRS and Communitech. And if you extend a bit towards London and Stratford you get excellent culture and schools like Western and Fanshawe, and in the other directions towards Markham and Kingston you get highly educated knowledge workers. Organizations like the Ontario Centres of Excellence (http://www.oce-ontario.org/) - who I am not directly connected to but professionally benefit from and generally admire - are viewing this part of the world as much bigger than any one city, and I think that is necessary. If there's anything we have that is similar to Silicon Valley (which benefits as well by relative proximity to LA and San Diego) is that this is a high density population area, at least as far as such things exist in Canada. |